How to embed your showreel - both audio and video - into your website

The easiest and best way of handling video embeds is to upload your showreel to YouTube. Why? Because it allows for the highest quality of video for free, unlike Vimeo Free which doesn't allow for High Quality embeds.

Once you have your video on YouTube, you can click the 'Share' button below the video and select the 'Embed' tab. Here you will be given a line of HTML code called an iFrame which you can simply copy and paste into the section of your website page.

If using a blog of some sort, you may need to wrap the iFrame in tags.

To further customise the look of the video to appear more professional, it helps to have a very basic understanding of HTML and CSS. For example, you can change the parameter value of 'modestbranding' to 1 which removes the YouTube logo from the video, making the focus more on you as an actor and not YouTube. It should look something like this: modestbranding="0"

Changing the width and height allows you to take up more or less of your website page, depending on how obvious you want to make your video.
Once you have the embed link, add rel=0 to the end of your video URL to make sure when your reel ends, it doesn't display related videos. There's nothing worse than suddenly having the illusion shattered with recommendations such as '12 Funniest Kitten Dances'!

As you add more settings to the embed code, you will need to add an & sign before each new instruction. For example, an embedded video that has no logo, and doesn't show related videos it will look like this:

The part you have added here is ?rel=0&autohide=1
Just keep adding & to place more and more features. A simple Google search of YouTube embed APIs will give a list of any features that might appeal to you.

It is best to avoid adding Auto Play features to your showreel, as this will likely annoy casting directors or agents who don't want their internet slowed down, or sudden loud noises playing in the background. Most CDs and Agents have a browser extension to block these anyway. Additionally, avoid setting the quality automatically to the highest setting. Yes, we want you to look beautiful in stunning HD, but Agents and CDs know how to change the settings to what they want. Putting it at either 480p or 720p is a good bet.

If you are already a Pro user of Vimeo, you may consider using it to host your showreel. Vimeo offers an easier way to customise basic features of its videos than YouTube does. To do this, open up the video and hover your mouse over it. To the right, you will see three icons: a heart, a clock, and a paper aeroplane. Click on the paper aeroplane to 'Share' the video. A pop-up will appear with several options, the last of which being Embed. Again, on the right-hand side of this pop-up, there is a button saying '+ more options'. Click this to change the size of your video, show video descriptions and much more. You can also change the colours of the buttons that appear so it matches your website's theme.
Once you've chosen all the features you want, copy the iFrame embed code and paste it into your website.

Embedding if using Wordpress for your website:

Using a format such as oEmbed lets you simply paste the URL (www.myvideo.com) into your webpage, and it will automatically create the embed code for you. This works for most services such as YouTube, Vimeo and Hulu.

You must put the URL on its own separate line for the program to understand it properly. If you wish to keep it on the same line as a paragraph of text for example, simply wrap the URL in [embed] and [/embed] to get round this.